Related:

• GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
  In his great work on _Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution_, the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture -- the shrug -- among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell....
• LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• HERS, pron. His. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• Abroad, adj. At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable
  o be an American abroad is to make others miserable....
• ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...